The Worlds of Petrarch

The Worlds of Petrarch
ISBN-10
082238261X
ISBN-13
9780822382614
Category
Poetry
Pages
250
Language
English
Published
1993-10-20
Publisher
Duke University Press
Author
Giuseppe Mazzotta

Description

At the center of Petrarch's vision, announcing a new way of seeing the world, was the individual, a sense of the self that would one day become the center of modernity as well. This self, however, seemed to be fragmented in Petrarch's work, divided among the worlds of philosophy, faith, and love of the classics, politics, art, and religion, of Italy, France, Greece, and Rome. In recent decades scholars have explored each of these worlds in depth. In this work, Giuseppe Mazzotta shows for the first time how all these fragmentary explorations relate to each other, how these separate worlds are part of a common vision. Written in a clear and passionate style, The Worlds of Petrarch takes us into the politics of culture, the poetic imagination, into history and ethics, art and music, rhetoric and theology. With this encyclopedic strategy, Mazzotta is able to demonstrate that the self for Petrarch is not a unified whole but a unity of parts, and, at the same time, that culture emerges not from a consensus but from a conflict of ideas produced by opposition and dark passion. These conflicts, intrinsic to Petrarch's style of thought, lead Mazzotta to a powerful rethinking of the concepts of "fragments" and "unity" and, finally, to a new understanding of the relationship between them.

Other editions

Similar books

  • Penguin's Poems for Life
    By Laura Barber

    ... Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, ... A Noiseless Patient Spider A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a ...

  • Penguin's Poems by Heart
    By Laura Barber

    An anthology of some of the best English poems.

  • Scales of the Dragon
    By James Timberlake

    Combining journal entries, poetry and formal e-mails, these books celebrate the sights, sounds, flavors, (and the physical and mental strain), of crossing mountains, rolling landscapes, and unchanged rural villages, as well as vibrant ...

  • Upon This Stoney Holy Year
    By James Timberlake

    There are no Formal E-mails, no Definitions, no Autobiography or Research here. And because of all that it is not, this book completes those first two in the pilgrimage series in a gentle way.

  • Heaven Is My Real Home: Volume 1
    By Karen Freeman

    Karen Freeman! Was born August 22, 1950 in Newark New Jersey. She had a “BRIGHT” daughter named Kira. She Married Warren W. C. Freeman March 1, 1998. They were married for 13 years and 20 days. She “PASSED-ON” March 21, 2011.

  • Battle Dress: Poems
    By Karen Skolfield

    Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award "A terrific and sometimes terrifying collection—morally complex, rhythmic, tough-minded, and original." —Rosanna Warren, 2018 Barnard Women Poets Prize citation In a poetic voice at once accessible ...

  • Glossator 9: Pearl
    By Karl Steel, David Coley, Daniel Remein

    O. D. Macrae Gibson points out that the function of pyȝt as a concatenating word stresses its capacity to mean both arrayed and set.8 Gordon glosses the word as varying in sense throughout the poem between “set,” “fixed,” and “adorned” ...

  • The Truth
    By Karen Michelle Thompson

    This riveting poetry collection is a fresh and witty account of thoughts and experiences that everyday people have in their day-to-day lives.

  • Heart on Fire
    By Karen Teich Cluster

    SELL. IT. SOMEWHERE. ELSE. Well, you can take your good looks somewhere else Cuz they're not for sale 'round here... I've heard about you and the things you do And I don't need you anywhere near. Yeah, I've met your kind a time or two ...

  • Lerna, a Preclassical Site in the Argolid: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens
    By American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Jeremy B. Rutter, Elizabeth Banks

    I was indeed fortunate in being able to recruit a pair of talented , conscientious , and unfailingly cheerful draftsmen in the persons of Julie Baker and Kathi Donahue ( now Sherwood ) to collaborate with my wife , Sally , in producing ...